Saturday, April 27, 2013

China’s military is continuing to mobilize military forces along the North Korean border despite official denials as Pyongyang appears set for a missile test launch this week, according to U.S. officials.

U.S. intelligence agencies continued to collect reports of Chinese military movements in border provinces that have been underway since last month.

Meanwhile, China reported Tuesday that North Korea may be preparing to conduct a fourth underground nuclear test.

Reports indicate the People’s Liberation Army is on a very heightened alert status, amid mounting tensions between North Korea and the United States and South Korea.

Several reports were derived from Chinese microblogging sites that in the past have provided reliable information on Chinese military activities.

One April 17 photo showed scores of soldiers marching on a street in the city of Shenyang on the way to Dandong, a major border city on the Yalu River dividing the two countries.

Another posting stated military vehicles carrying tanks were spotted heading to Liaoyang, in Liaoning province, also near the border. The movements were reported by a user who said he was in a logistic unit of a PLA unit in Siping, Jilin province, and added that the troops would be deployed to the border “soon.”

Kyrgyzstan’s authorities have banned imports of poultry from China over the spread of a new strain of bird flu, a spokesman for the Kyrgyz Economics Ministry said Friday.

“According to data from the director general of the international epizootic bureau, a new type of avian influenza, H7N9, has been registered among wild birds in the cities of Shanghai, Beijing and a number of Chinese provinces,” Ermek Dzhanuzakov said.

“The state inspection for veterinary and phytosanitary safety has adopted a resolution to ban imports of birds and poultry products from China to reduce the risk of infection spreading” beyond China's borders, he said.

In total, nine lambs were born with this genetic modification. They are now 6 months old and in perfect condition, researchers said. These lambs look like regular lambs except that they glow when exposed to ultraviolet light, the scientists said.

Militants shot dead five Iraqi soldiers in the Sunni Muslim stronghold province of Anbar on Saturday and protesters said they were forming an "army" after four days of unrest that raised fears of a return to widespread sectarian civil conflict.

More than 170 people have been killed since Tuesday when security forces stormed a Sunni protest camp in the town of Hawija, triggering clashes that spread to other Sunni areas in western and northern areas.

Sunnis have been demonstrating since December against the perceived marginalization of their sect under Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim-led government.

After surveyors discovered what appears to be plane landing gear from the 9/11 attacks, authorities are wondering how it got sandwiched between two buildings — one of them housing a much-debated Islamic community center.

"The odds of it entering that space at exactly that angle that would permit it to squeeze in there ... it had to come in at almost precisely the right angle," a police spokesman told The New York Times. Investigators are considering the possibility that it was deliberately stuck in the spot, CNN reports.

"We are also looking into a possibility it was lowered by a rope," said NYPD commissioner Raymond Kelly, who noted that some rope seemed to be wrapped up in the landing gear.

The leader of Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) took the stage at a Greens party congress on Saturday with an unashamed pitch for them to throw in their lot with the SPD to defeat Chancellor Angela Merkel in September.

It was the first time an SPD leader had addressed a Greens congress. Sigmar Gabriel, whose party would need a coalition with the rising pro-environment party to have any chance of leading the next government, delivered a passionate plea to the Greens to stop flirting with Merkel's conservatives.

He appeared determined to smooth over the tensions this has raised and was remarkably complimentary about a rival only 33 years old that the SPD has sometimes treated as a poor stepsister.

Ten people were killed and dozens wounded in a prison riot early Saturday in the central state of San Luis Potosi, local officials said.

State police said they had re-established control in an cell block of La Pila prison in the state capital of San Luis Potosi after a fight broke out between prisoners, according to a posting on the security ministry's official social media page.

Authorities were investigating the cause of the riot and it was unclear if inmates belonged to rival drug gangs, whose battles have sparked violence across Mexico.

A gunbattle between security forces and Islamist insurgents in Nigeria a week ago killed 228 people, a local senator said on Saturday, putting the death toll six times higher than the government's estimate.

A large number of civilian deaths will fuel accusations that the military acted heavy-handedly and failed to protect bystanders and might also increase pressure on the government to seek a negotiated settlement with the radical group Boko Haram.

There have been conflicting death tolls from the April 19 operation carried out by joint forces from Nigeria, Chad and Niger against Boko Haram insurgents in the remote northeastern town of Baga.

Police have said a Mississippi martial arts tutor has been arrested in connection with poison-laced letters sent to President Barack Obama and two other officials.

Everett Dutschke was taken into custody by US Marshals at his home without incident, according to Tupelo police chief Tony Carleton.

Federal agents from the FBI and the US Capitol Police, as well as members of an anti-terrorist response team from the Mississippi National Guard, had earlier searched the 41-year-old's home and former martial arts studio.

Two factory bosses and two engineers were arrested in Bangladesh on Saturday, three days after the collapse of a building where low-cost garments were made for Western brands, as the death toll rose to 341 but many were still being found alive.

As many as 900 people could still be missing, police said.

The owner of the eight-storey building that fell like a pack of cards around more than 3,000 workers was still on the run.

Susan Hendricks (right), 49, of South Carolina, pleaded guilty but mentally ill to four counts of murder and accepted a life sentence in a plea bargain more than two years after she massacred her family to get $700,000 in life insurance. A psychologist testified that the woman has multiple personalities and suffered from severe PTSD caused by childhood sexual abuse. Family and friends of the victims sobbed and embraced outside the courtroom (left) after learning Hendricks' fate.

Hailey Darlene Dunn's remains were found near Lake J.B. Thomas in Scurry County on March 16, more than two years after her mother reported her missing in December 2010. The cheerleader's disappearance and the cause of her death remain under investigation, Scurry County Sheriff Trey Wilson said at a news conference Friday.

A Spanish-language leaflet that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided to the Mexican Embassy in Washington advises border-crossing Mexicans that they can collect taxpayer-funded food stamp benefits for their children without admitting that they're illegal immigrants.

Underlined and in boldface type, the document tells immigrants who are unlawfully in the United States that, 'You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.'

Friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev arrested last week who cruised around in a car with the 'Terrorista #1' license plate have also been revealed to be two of the group of friends recently photographed with the Boston Marathon bomber in Times Square. The two 19-year-old men from Kazakhstan are Azamat Tazhayakov, left, and Dias Kadyrbayev, center. Their lawyer says the students are shocked by the allegations against Tsarnaev and just want to go home.

The FBI has revealed that they now know the identity of the American known as Misha who helped radicalize the Boston bombing suspects.

Family members of dead bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev have described Misha as the guiding influence in the elder bomber developing radicalized views.

Speculation as to who Misha is has varied wildly in the past week, with some suggesting he is the mastermind behind the marathon bombings while others believe he could be a Russian spy - sent to identify and keep tabs on young men like Tamerlan who are at risk of turning to militant Islam.

Brussels has demanded that Britain makes it easier for the unemployed from other European Union countries to find jobs here.

The EU Commission said that while some states suffer ‘much higher’ levels of unemployment, the rest of the EU should open their doors and help.

It wants new rules to force the Government to better advise migrants about their rights. They would also make it easier for unions and migrant groups to launch legal action if they think foreign workers are suffering discrimination.

British taxpayers are to fund a prison building programme in poor countries such as Nigeria and Jamaica so more foreign inmates languishing in British jails can be sent home, David Cameron announced yesterday.

The Prime Minister admitted that too many foreign prisoners remained in this country and said ‘helping to build prisons in their own country’ would ensure more were kicked out.

Exactly one year ago, after three recounts, I was swept back into power as a local district councillor by a massive two votes. Despite an astonishingly vitriolic campaign against me, I unseated a Liberal Democrat — and life as a district councillor began again.

I say again because I had already done 36 years during an earlier stint as an Independent on South Cambridgeshire District Council. I’d resigned in 2006 as a matter of principle, fed up with the pervasive culture of political correctness and the crazy rules on ‘standards of behaviour’ for councillors introduced under Labour by John Prescott.

That’s right: John Prescott, the man who romped with his mistress on the desk of his Whitehall office, issuing edicts on standards of behaviour. What a joke!

Recession-hit Spain needs two more years to meet budget targets agreed with the EU, the government said Friday, presenting a new challenge to the region's austerity drive.

Unveiling a program of structural reforms aimed at reviving the economy, the Spanish government said gross domestic product was likely to shrink by about 1.3% this year, after suffering a similar contraction in 2012, before returning to growth in 2014.

It also published new estimates of government borrowing, revising up sharply the budget deficit for 2013 to 6.3% of GDP from 4.5%. The deficit should fall to 5.5% next year but won't be brought under the 3% EU target until 2016, two years later than originally planned.

Syria denies that it has used, or even possesses, chemical weapons, accusing the United States and Britain of lying in order to pressure the embattled Damascus government.

Syrian Information Minister Omran Al-Zoubi talked to Russia TV on Friday, dismissing a claim by U.S. officials a day earlier that they had evidence the chemical weapon sarin had been used in Syria on a small scale.

"Everything that the American minister and British government have said lack credibility," Al-Zoubi said. "It's baseless, and it's a new tactic to put political and economic pressure on Syria."

North Korea plans to begin a trial against a U.S. citizen detained there last year, state media said Saturday, complicating tense relations between the two nations.

Pae Jun Ho entered North Korea as a tourist on November 3, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

After his detention, evidence revealed he had committed an unspecified crime against the country, the news agency said. The agency said he confessed to the alleged offense, but did not say what it was.

TAIPEI, Taiwan - Huang Li-min, chief physician at the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, yesterday said according to Hong Kong's latest research, the fatality rate of H7N9 influenza is higher than SARS.

In the wake of the first confirmed case of H7N9 influenza discovered in Taiwan this week, Huang warned that the fatality rate for the H7N9 virus is more than 10 per cent, which is higher than SARS' 8- to 10-per cent fatality rate. Everyone should be more careful and protect themselves, Huang said.

The patient, who returned to Taiwan from mainland China earlier in April, began feeling unwell on April 12 and was sent to NTUH for treatment on April 20.

The patient was later sent to an intensive care unit and received ECMO therapy. NTUH Deputy Superintendent Chang Shang-chun said the patient is in a serious but stable condition.

Six men were injured when a roof of a Mosque in Hayatabad Phase VI collapsed due to heavy rain in provincial Capital on Friday.

The incident occurred when heavy rain and hail storm struck the provincial capital and roof of Nimra Mosque collapsed, resultantly, eight people, including three children, received sever injuries. Rescue teams reached to spot after the incident and shifted the injured to Hayatabad Medical Complex.

The injured were identified as 34 year old Ijaz, 40 year old Dil Nawaz, Fayaz, 30 year old Hanif, 21 year old Riaz, 15 year old Nasim, 13 year old Mujeb ur Rehman and 15 year old Zahid.

Two people died when a wing of a government-run hospital in Bhopal in central India collapsed Friday evening, police said.

"The incident took place at 5:30 p.m. [1200 GMT] when the ceiling of the first floor of the hospital collapsed," said Upendra Kumar Jain, the Inspector General of Police in Bhopal. "It is a decades old building" and the section of the edifice that collapsed was undergoing building work, he said.

Twenty five were rescued and admitted to a nearby hospital. Others, including patients and hospital staff, were still trapped inside, he said.

The Taliban in Afghanistan vowed on Saturday to start a new campaign of mass suicide attacks on foreign military bases and diplomatic areas, as well as damaging "insider attacks", as part of a new spring offensive this year.

The offensive was announced via emails from Taliban spokesmen. The Islamist group has made similar announcements in recent years, which have sometimes been followed by spikes in violence after Afghanistan's harsh winter months.

The announcement of more mass suicide and insider attacks will likely be greeted with concern by the NATO-led military coalition, which is in the final stages of a fight against the Taliban-led insurgency that began in late 2001.

An Idaho woman has pleaded guilty to charges that she burned the body of her two-year-old daughter in a barrel after the toddler died of an injury.

Prosecutors alleged Veronica Herrera did so with the help of two of her other children.

Court records say Herrera, a resident of the small town of Homedale located 40 miles west of Boise, told investigators her daughter Nakita jumped from a potty chair, hit her head on a heater and later died.

US President Barack Obama has warned the Syrian government that using chemical weapons would be a "game changer" as he faces rising pressure to intervene in the civil war.

His comments were made during a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah in the Oval Office - a day after US officials said they suspected that the deadly agent sarin had already been fired off in small-scale attacks.

But Mr Obama appeared wary of launching military action based on initial intelligence reports of chemical weapons use, warning Washington that it must "act prudently".